Page 5 of Don't Puck Up

The whole thing was a mess. My sister no longer answered when I called and never returned my messages. Chris’s family barely toleratedme. His mom was polite enough not to hang up, but only just. We used to speak every few days, but she was cold and distant now. Both our fathers told me how disappointed they were in me, that I’d let the families down and betrayed my vows—the most sacred of oaths apart from those given to God.

Now I was afraid of actually breaking my vows—not because there was a risk of me cheating. It was because I didn’t know whether we would actually stay together. We were drifting apart.

We were struggling.

I loved him more than life itself. He was my everything. It would utterly destroy me to lose him. But I might as well be trapped in a barrel, bobbing along river rapids and about to get tossed over the impending falls—and not just itty bitty falls, but one the size of Niagara—for all the control I had. The drop in my gut before the inevitable crash had already hit me. Our relationship’s last legs were about to give out.

I was heartbroken.

I’d never been more alone.

***

“Can we talk?” I asked Chris when he closed the door to the mudroom. My voice sounded small and uncertain. But I was buoyed after meeting Carina, Gauthier’s new wife. I liked her, and while she was protective of Hux, who’d started dating her daughter, she also didn’t seem to judge me. She appreciated that we had reasons for staying silent. It was the first time I’d experienced even that small level of acceptance from anyone since this whole dumpster fire happened.

The visit to Gauthier’s house had given me something else to think about. It was the first time in months that I’d felt hope, like maybe one day we might get past this.

“O-kay,” Chris mumbled, hesitating where he stood.

“Carina said something today, and it got me thinking. I think maybe we need a break from all this—”

His eyes widened, and he hustled over to me, his voice wobbling with panic when he said, “Kam—”

“I mean a vacation,” I rushed to clarify. “You and me together—just the two of us.”

Chris took my hands in his shaking ones and squeezed them, his palms clammy and his pulse point hammering.

“Somewhere we can switch off and justbewithout all the pressure and the media scrutiny. No cell phones, no internet, no speculation. Just… us.”

“Let's do it.” He smiled, his gaze full of relief. But then he sighed, the sound weighted. He added quietly, “You scared me. I never would have been scared if you’d said something like that six months ago. Proves we really do need this, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I paused and ruminated on his words. We really had reached a crossroads. But I wasn’t going down without a fight. I’d paddle against the tide to stop us from going over that waterfall for as long as I had strength left in me. “Where should we go?”

Chris didn’t hesitate when he answered, “Fiji. You’ve always wanted to go there, and we’ve never gotten around to it. So let’s do it. I want to take you there.”

My heart swelled, the shattered pieces pulling together like a marionet on a string. Our relationship wasn’t mended—it was still barely holding together—but he’d finally picked up the controls.

Chris pulled me into his arms and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I love you, baby. I want us to get back to what we were. If going away will help us do that, let’s go tomorrow.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist and held tight, breathing in his familiar scent and feeling the steady beat of his heart against my cheek. This, right here, was everything I wanted. Chris was right when he said, “Who cares what other people think?” because in that moment, I still had it all, no matter what the outside world thought about us.

three

Minns

The moonlight reflected off the calm waters lapping on the private beach outside our bure. The luxury hut was set back a little way from the water, a narrow strip of grass the only thing between us and the wide sandy beach. We were surrounded on three sides by lush tropical gardens filled with flowers. Jasmine and hibiscus scented the air, and the leaves on the palm trees rustled quietly in the gentle breeze coming off the Pacific.

This place was paradise. It was a private oasis that truly was exactly what Kam and I needed.

The bures were traditional log huts on the outside, but there was nothing plain inside them. The simple but luxurious interiors had towering ceilings, hardwood floors polished to a rich honey sheen, pristine white linen on the oversized four-poster king bed, a bathroom with uninterrupted views of the ocean, and a tub that could comfortably fit three adults in it.

There was only a small kitchenette, but we didn’t need anything more—room service was available, or we could walk or take the golf cart along the sandy track to the small restaurant and bar in the central section of the resort. We could be as social as we wanted, swimming in the larger pool instead of our own private plunge pool, use any of the facilities in the resort, and do whatever water sports we wanted—jet skiing, snorkeling, or windsurfing. Or we could keep it private, ourbure one of only a handful on this side of the island, totally detached from one another.

We’d done a bit of both so far. It was only our third night on the island, but Fiji had already delivered on its promise of spectacular. We’d started opening up to each other again. We’d spent our days together, walking and talking, swimming and snorkeling among the shallow reefs, laughing, and just rediscovering why we fell in love all those years ago.

But now we were havingtheconversation—the one that we should’ve had months ago. I needed liquid courage for it, and the whiskey was going down far too easily. I set my glass down, already feeling the buzz of the liquor. Kam deserved for me to be present rather than half drunk, and the drinks weren’t relieving the pressure on my chest anyway. It was tight, and I was finding it hard to breathe under the weight of my failure.

I was an awful, selfish, self-centered human being. I’d been so blinded by my fear of being outed that I’d dismissed what I’d done to Kamirah—or maybe I’d subconsciously buried my head in the sand—until it was too late. The moment she’d seen the TMZ scoop, she warned me that I was throwing her under the bus. I hadn’t believed her prediction of how bad it would be. I’d told her to ignore it, to forget about what other people thought because they weren’t important. What a joke. It was such an incredibly cruel and inconsiderate thing to say.